character of the air which instantly enveloped me. Had I wished for any
further proof than was afforded by the warning given me by the condition
of the hinges, that the foot of man had not lately invaded these
precincts, I would have had it in the mouldy atmosphere and smell of
dust that greeted me on the threshold. Neither human breath nor a ray of
outdoor sunshine seemed to have disturbed its gloomy quiet for years,
and when I moved, as I presently did, to open one of the windows I dimly
discerned at my right, I felt such a movement of something foul and
noisome amid the decaying rags of the carpet through which I was
stumbling that I had to call into use the stronger elements of my
character not to back out of a place so given over to rot and the
creatures that infest it.
"What a spot," thought I, "for Amelia Butterworth to find herself in!"
and wondered if I could ever wear again the three-dollar-a-yard silk
dress in which I was then enveloped. Of my shoes I took no account. They
were ruined, of course.
I reached the window in safety, but could not open it; neither could I
move the adjoining one. There were sixteen in all, or so I afterwards
found, and not till I reached the last (you see, I am very persistent)
did I succeed in loosening the bar that held its inner shutter in place.
This done, I was able to lift the window, and for the first time in
years, perhaps, let in a ray of light into this desolated apartment.
The result was disappointing. Mouldy walls, worm-eaten hangings, two
very ancient and quaint fireplaces, met my eyes, and nothing more. The
room was absolutely empty. For a few minutes I allowed my eyes to roam
over the great rectangular space in which so much that was curious and
interesting had once taken place, and then, with a vague sense of
defeat, turned my eyes outward, anxious to see what view could be
obtained from the window I had opened. To my astonishment, I saw before
me a high wall with here and there a window in it, all tightly barred
and closed, till by a careful inspection about me I realized that I was
looking upon the other wing of the building, and that between these
wings extended a court so narrow and long that it gave to the building
the shape, as I have before said, of the letter U. A dreary prospect,
reminding one of the view from a prison, but it had its point of
interest, for in the court below me, the brick pavement of which was
half obliterated by grass, I caught sight of William in an attitude so
different from any I had hitherto seen him assume that I found it
difficult to account for it till I caught sight of the jaws of a dog
protruding from under his arms, and then I realized he was hugging
Saracen.
The dog was tied, but the comfort which William seemed to take in just
this physical contact with his rough skin was something worth seeing. It
made me quite thoughtful for a moment.
I detest dogs, and it gives me a creepy sensation to see them fondled,
but sincerity of feeling appeals to me, and no one could watch William
Knollys with his dogs without seeing that he really loved the brutes.
Thus in one day I had witnessed the best and worst side of this man. But
wait! Had I seen the worst? I was not so sure that I had.
He had not noticed my peering, for which I was duly thankful, and after
another fruitless survey of the windows in the wall before me, I drew
back and prepared to leave the place. This was by no means a pleasant
undertaking. I could now see what I had only felt before, and to
traverse the space before me amid beetles and spiders required a
determination of no ordinary nature. I was glad when I reached the great
doors and more than glad when they closed behind me.
"So much for Room A," thought I.
The next most promising apartment was in the same corridor as the
dining-room. It was called the Dark Parlor. Entering it, I found it dark
indeed, but not because of lack of light, but because its hangings were
all of a dismal red and its furniture of the blackest ebony. As this
mainly consisted of shelves and cabinets placed against three of its
four walls, the effect was gloomy indeed, and fully accounted for the
name which the room had received. I lingered in it, however, longer than
I had in the big drawing-room, chiefly because the shelves contained
books.
Had anything better offered I might not have continued my explorations,
but not seeing exactly how I could pass away the time more profitably, I
chose out another key and began to search for the Flower Parlor. I found
it beyond the dining-room in the same hall as the Dark Parlor.
It was, as I might have expected from the name, the brightest and most
cheerful spot I had yet found in the whole house. The air in it was even
good, as if sunshine and breeze had not been altogether shut out of it,
yet I had no sooner taken one look at its flower-painted walls and
pretty furniture than I felt an oppression difficult to account for.
Something was wrong about this room. I am not superstitious and have no
faith in premonitions, but once seized by a conviction, I have never
known myself to be mistaken as to its import. Something was wrong about
this room--what, it was my business to discover.
Letting in more light, I took a closer survey of the objects I had
hitherto seen but dimly. They were many and somewhat contradictory in
character. The floor was bare--the first bare floor I had come upon--but
the shades in the windows, the chintz-covered lounges drawn up beside
tables bestrewn with books and other objects of comfort and luxury,
bespoke a place in common if not every-day use.
A faint smell of tobacco assured me in whose use, and from the minute I
recognized that this was William's sanctum, my curiosity grew unbounded
and I neglected nothing which would be likely to attract the
keenest-eyed detective in Mr. Gryce's force. There were several things
to be noted there: First, that this lumbering lout of a man read, but
only on one topic--vivisection; secondly, that he was not a reader
merely, for there were instruments in the cases heaped up on the tables
about me, and in one corner--it made me a little sick, but I persevered
in searching out the corners--a glass case with certain horrors in it
which I took care to note, but which it is not necessary for me to
describe. Another corner was blocked up by a closet which stood out in
the room in a way to convince me it had been built in after the room was
otherwise finished. As I crossed over to examine the door, which did not
appear to me to be quite closed, I noticed on the floor at my feet a
huge discoloration. This was the worst thing I had yet encountered, and
while I did not feel quite justified in giving it a name, I could not
but feel some regret for the worm-eaten rags of the drawing-room, which,
after all, are more comfortable underfoot than bare boards with such
suggestive marks upon them as these.
The door to the closet was, as I had expected, slightly ajar, a fact for
which I was profoundly grateful, for, set it down to breeding or a
natural recognition of other people's rights, I would have found it most
difficult to turn the knob of a closet door, inspection of which had not
been offered me.
But finding it open, I gave it just a little pull and found--well, it
was a surprise, much more so than the sight of a skeleton would have
been--that the whole interior was taken up by a small circular staircase
such as you find in public libraries where the books are piled up in
tiers. It stretched from the floor to the ceiling, and dark as it was I
thought I detected the outlines of a trap-door by means of which
communication was established with the room above. Anxious to be
convinced of this, I consulted with myself as to what a detective would
do in my place. The answer came readily enough: "Mount the stairs and
feel for yourself whether there is a lock there." But my delicacy
or--shall I acknowledge it for once?--an instinct of timidity seemed to
restrain me, till a remembrance of Mr. Gryce's sarcastic look which I
had seen honoring lesser occasions than these, came to nerve me, and I
put foot on the stairs which had last been trod--by whom, shall I say?
William? Let us hope by William, and William only.
Being tall, I had to mount but a few steps before reaching the ceiling.
Pausing for breath, the air being close and the stairs steep, I reached
up and felt for the hinge or clasp I had every reason to expect to
encounter. I found it almost immediately, and, satisfied now that
nothing but a board separated me from the room above, I tried that board
with my finger and was astonished to feel it yield. As this was a wholly
unexpected discovery I drew back and asked myself if it would be wise to
pursue it to the point of raising this door, and had hardly settled the
question in my own mind, when the sound of a voice raised in a soothing
murmur, revealed the fact that the room above was not empty, and that I
would be committing a grave indiscretion in thus tampering with a means
of entrance possibly under the very eye of the person speaking.
If the voice I had heard had been all that had come to my ears, I might
have ventured after a moment of hesitation to brave the displeasure of
Miss Knollys by an attempt which would have at once satisfied me as to
the correctness of the suspicions which were congealing my blood as I
stood there, but another voice--the heavy and threatening voice of
William--had broken into this murmur, and I knew that if I so much as
awakened in him the least suspicion of my whereabouts, I would have to
dread an anger that might not know where to stop.
I therefore rested from further efforts in this direction, and fearing
he might bethink him of some errand which would bring him to the
trap-door himself, I began a retreat which I made slow only from my
desire not to make any noise. I succeeded as well as if my feet had been
shod in velvet and my dress had been made of wool instead of a rustling
silk, and when once again I found myself planted in the centre of the
Flower Parlor, the closet door closed, and no evidence remaining of my
late attempt to probe this family secret, I drew a deep breath of relief
that was but a symbol of my devout thankfulness.
I did not mean to remain much longer in this spot of evil suggestions,
but spying the corner of a book protruding from under a cushion of one
of the lounges, I had a curiosity to see if it were similar to the
others I had handled. Drawing it out, I took one look at it.
I need not tell what it was, but after a hasty glance here and there
through its pages, I put it back, shuddering. If any doubt remained in
my breast that William was one of those monsters who feed their morbid
cravings by experiments upon the weak and defenceless, it had been
dispelled by what I had just seen in this book.
However, I did not leave the room immediately. As it was of the greatest
importance that I should be able to locate in which of the many
apartments on the floor above, the supposed prisoner was lodged, I cast
about me for the means of doing this through the location of the room in
which I then was. As this could only be done by affixing some token to
the window, which could be recognized from without, I thought, first, of
thrusting the end of my handkerchief through one of the slats of the
outside blinds; secondly, of simply leaving one of these blinds ajar;
and finally, of chipping off a piece with the penknife I always carry
with innumerable other small things in the bag I invariably wear at my
side. (Fashion, I hold, counts for nothing against convenience.)
This last seemed by much the best device. A handkerchief could be
discovered and pulled out, an open blind could be shut, but a sliver
once separated from the wood of the casement, nothing could replace it
or even cover it up without itself attracting attention.
Taking out my knife, I glanced at the door leading into the hall, found
it still shut and everything quiet behind it. Then I took a look into
the shrubs and bushes of the yard outside, and, observing nothing to
disturb me, snipped off a bit from one of the outer edges of the slats
and then carefully reclosed the blinds and the window.
I was crossing the threshold when I heard a rapid footstep in the hall.
Miss Knollys was hastening down the hall to my side.
"Oh, Miss Butterworth," she exclaimed, with one quick look into the room
I was leaving, "this is William's den, the one spot he never allows any
of us to enter. I don't know how the key came to be upon the string. It
never was before, and I am afraid he never will forgive me."
"He need never know that I have been the victim of such a mistake," said
I. "My feet leave no trail, and as I use no perfumes he will never
suspect that I have enjoyed a glimpse of these old-fashioned walls and
ancient cabinets."
"The slats of the blinds are a little open," she remarked, her eyes
searching my face for some sign that I am sure she did not find there.
"Were they so when you came in?"
"I hardly think so; it was very dark. Shall I put them as I found them?"
"No. He will not notice." And she hurried me out, still eying me
breathlessly as if she half distrusted my composure.
"Come, Amelia," I now whispered in self-admonition, "the time for
exertion has come. Show this young woman, who is not much behind you in
self-control, some of the lighter phases of your character. Charm her,
Amelia, charm her, or you may live to rue this invasion into family
secrets more than you may like to acknowledge at the present moment."
A task of some difficulty, but I rejoice in difficult tasks, and before
another half-hour had passed, I had the satisfaction of seeing Miss
Knollys entirely restored to that state of placid melancholy which was
the natural expression of her calm but unhappy nature.
We visited the Shell Cabinet, the Blue Parlor, and another room, the
peculiarities of which I have forgotten. Frightened by the result of
leaving me to my own devices, she did not quit me for an instant, and
when, my curiosity quite satisfied, I hinted that a short nap in my own
room would rest me for the evening, she proceeded with me to the door of
my apartment.
"The locksmith whom I saw this morning has not kept his word," I
remarked as she was turning away.
"None of the tradesmen here do that," was her cold answer. "I have given
up expecting having any attention paid to my wants."
"Humph," thought I. "Another pleasant admission. Amelia Butterworth,
this has not been a cheerful day."
XVIII
THE SECOND NIGHT
I cannot say that I looked forward to the night with any very cheerful
anticipations. The locksmith having failed to keep his appointment, I
was likely to have no more protection against intrusion than I had had
the night before, and while I cannot say that I especially feared any
unwelcome entrance into my apartment, I should have gone to my rest with
a greater sense of satisfaction if a key had been in the lock and that
key had been turned by my own hand on my own side of the door.
The atmosphere of gloom which settled down over the household after the
evening meal, seemed like the warning note of something strange and evil
awaiting us. So marked was this, that many in my situation would have
further disturbed these girls by some allusion to the fact. But that was
not the role I had set myself to play at this crisis. I remembered what
Mr. Gryce had said about winning their confidence, and though the
turmoil evident in Lucetta's mind and the distraction visible even in
the careful Miss Knollys led me to expect a culmination of some kind
before the night was over, I not only hid my recognition of this fact,
but succeeded in sufficiently impressing them with the contentment which
my own petty employments afforded me (I am never idle even in other
persons' houses) for them to spare me the harassment of their alternate
visits, which, in their present mood and mine promised little in the way
of increased knowledge of their purposes and much in the way of
distraction and the loss of that nerve upon which I calculated for a
successful issue out of the possible difficulties of this night.
Had I been a woman of ordinary courage, I would have sounded three
premonitory notes upon my whistle before blowing out my candle, but
while I am not lacking, I hope, in many of the finer feminine qualities
which link me to my sex, I have but few of that sex's weaknesses and
none of its instinctive reliance upon others which leads it so often to
neglect its own resources. Till I saw good reasons for summoning the
police, I proposed to preserve a discreet silence, a premature alarm
being in their eyes, as I knew from many talks with Mr. Gryce, the one
thing suggestive of a timid and inexperienced mind.
Hannah had brought me a delicious cup of tea at ten, the influence of
which was to make me very drowsy at eleven, but I shook this weakness
off and began my night's watch in a state of stern composure which I
verily believe would have awakened Mr. Gryce's admiration had it been
consonant with the proprieties for him to have seen it. Indeed the very
seriousness of the occasion was such that I could not have trembled if I
would, every nerve and faculty being strained to their utmost to make
the most of every sound which might arise in the now silent and
discreetly darkened house.
I had purposely omitted the precaution of pushing my bed against the
door of my room, as I had done the night before, being anxious to find
myself in a position to cross its threshold at the least alarm. That
this would come, I felt positive, for Hannah in leaving my room had
taken pains to say, in unconscious imitation of what Miss Knollys had
remarked the night before:
"Don't let any queer sounds you may hear disturb you, Miss Butterworth.
There's nothing to hurt you in this house; nothing at all." An
admonition which I am sure her young mistresses would not have allowed
her to utter if they had been made acquainted with her intention.
But though in a state of high expectation, and listening, as I supposed,
with every faculty alert, the sounds I apprehended delayed so long that
I began after an hour or two unaccountably to nod in my chair, and
before I knew it I was asleep, with the whistle in my hand and my feet
pressed against the panels of the door I had set myself to guard. How
deep that sleep was or how long I indulged in it, I can only judge from
the state of emotion in which I found myself when I suddenly woke. I was
sitting there still, but my usually calm frame was in a violent tremble,
and I found it difficult to stir, much more to speak. Some one or
something was at my door.
An instant and my powerful nature would have asserted itself, but before
this could happen the stealthy step drew nearer, and I heard the quiet,
almost noiseless, insertion of a key into the lock, and the quick turn
which made me a prisoner.
This, with the indignation it caused, brought me quickly to myself. So
the door had a key after all, and this was the use it was reserved for.
Rising quickly to my feet, I shouted out the names of Loreen, Lucetta,
and William, but received no other response than the rapid withdrawal of
feet down the corridor. Then I felt for the whistle, which had somehow
slipped from my hand, but failed to find it in the darkness, nor when I
went to search for the matches to relight the candle I had left standing
on a table near by, could I by any means succeed in igniting one, so
that I presently had the pleasure of finding myself shut up in my room,
with no means of communicating with the world outside and with no light
to render the situation tolerable. This was having the tables turned
upon me with a vengeance and in a way for which I could not account. I
could understand why they had locked me in the room and why they had not
heeded my cry of indignant appeal, but I could not comprehend how my
whistle came to be gone, nor why the matches, which were sufficiently
plentiful in the safe, refused one and all to perform their office.
On these points I felt it necessary to come to some sort of conclusion
before I proceeded to invent some way out of my difficulties. So,
dropping on my knees by the chair in which I had been sitting, I began a
quiet search for the petty object upon which, nevertheless, hung not my
safety perhaps, but all chances of success in an undertaking which was
every moment growing more serious. I did not find it, but I did find
where it had gone. In the floor near the door, my hand encountered a
hole which had been covered up by a rug early in the evening, but which
I now distinctly remembered having pushed aside with my feet when I took
my seat there. This aperture was not large, but it was so deep that my
hand failed to reach to the bottom of it; and into this hole by some
freak of chance had slipped the small whistle I had so indiscreetly
taken into my hand. The mystery of the matches was less easy of
solution; so I let it go after a moment of indecisive thought and bent
my energies once again to listen, when suddenly and without the least
warning there rose from somewhere in the house a cry so wild and
unearthly that I started up appalled, and for a moment could not tell
whether I was laboring under some fearful dream or a still more fearful
reality.
A rushing of feet in the distance and an involuntary murmur of voices
soon satisfied me, however, on this score, and drawing upon every energy
I possessed, I listened for a renewal of the cry which was yet curdling
my blood. But none came, and presently all was as still as if no sound
had arisen to disturb the midnight, though every fibre in my body told
me that the event I had feared--the event of which I hardly dared
mention the character even to myself--had taken place, and that I, who
was sent there to forestall it, was not only a prisoner in my room, but
a prisoner through my own folly and my inordinate love of tea.
The anger with which I contemplated this fact, and the remorse I felt at
the consequences which had befallen the innocent victim whose scream I
had just heard, made me very wide-awake indeed, and after an ineffectual
effort to make my voice heard from the window, I called my usual
philosophy to my aid and decided that since the worst had happened and
I, a prisoner, had to await events like any other weak and defenceless
woman, I might as well do it with calmness and in a way to win my own
approval at least. The dupe of William and his sisters, I would not be
the dupe of my own fears or even of my own regrets.
The consequence was a renewed equanimity and a gentle brooding over the
one event of the day which brought no regret in its train. The ride with
Mr. Trohm, and the acquaintanceship to which it had led, were topics
upon which I could rest with great soothing effect through the weary
hours stretching between me and daylight. Consequently of Mr. Trohm I
thought.
Whether the almost deathly quiet into which the house had now fallen, or
the comforting nature of my meditations held inexorably to the topic I
had chosen, acted as a soporific upon me I cannot tell, but greatly as I
dislike to admit it, feeling sure that you will expect to hear I kept
myself awake all that night, I insensibly sank from great alertness to
an easy indifference to my surroundings, and from that to vague dreams
in which beds of lilies and trellises covered with roses mingled
strangely with narrow, winding staircases whose tops ended in the
swaying branches of great trees; and so, into quiet and a nothingness
that were only broken into by a rap at my door and a cheerful:
"Eight o'clock, ma'am. The young ladies are waiting."
I bounded, literally bounded from my chair. Such a summons, after such a
night! What did it mean? I was sitting half dressed in my chair before
my door in a straightened and uncomfortable attitude, and therefore had
not dreamed that I had been upon the watch all night, yet the sunshine
in the room, the cheery tones such as I had not heard even from this
woman before, seemed to argue that my imagination had played me false
and that no horrors had come to disturb my rest or render my waking
distressing.
Stretching out my hand toward the door, I was about to open it, when I
bethought me.
"Turn the key in the lock," said I. "Somebody was careful enough of my
safety to fasten me in last night."
An exclamation of astonishment came from outside the door.
"There is no key here, ma'am. The door is not locked. Shall I open it
and come in?"
I was about to say yes in my anxiety to talk to the woman, but
remembering that nothing was to be gained by letting it be seen to what
an extent I had carried my suspicions, I hastily disrobed and crept into
bed. Pulling the coverings about me, I assumed a comfortable attitude
and then cried:
"Come in."
The door immediately opened.
"There, ma'am! What did I tell you? Locked?--this door? Why, the key has
been lost for months."
"I cannot help it," I protested, but with little if any asperity, for it
did not suit me that she should see I was moved by any extraordinary
feeling. "A key was put in that lock about midnight, and I was locked
in. It was about the time some one screamed in your own part of the
house."
"Screamed?" Her brows took a fine pucker of perplexity. "Oh, that must
have been Miss Lucetta."
"Lucetta?"